InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "who?"

Professor Remus J. Lupin (galarusblaidd) wrote in breaking_point,
@ 2010-11-13 12:41:00

Entry tags:

*complete, 2025 11, character: remus lupin, dead character: lily luna lestrange

RP: Remus and Lily (and Hope)
Who: Remus Lupin, Lily Lestrange, Hope Lestrange
Where: St. Mungo's
When: Saturday, 13 November, 2025 - morning
Summary: Remus comes to visit while he has the chance...and he's a sucker for babies.

Remus hadn't been certain he'd be allowed to see Lily, especially seeing as he wasn't technically family. But, he had to try while he could. He'd made a promise to his friend's memory to be there for his daughter however he could. And now there was a grandchild to be there for as well.

Still, he didn't have much of a hassle getting to see her. He'd given his name, turned over his wand, and been shown into her room.

Remus had plans to see James with Sirius later, try to work out where they stood as friends, family. He didn't know how that was going to go. But, it didn't matter just then. It was difficult to be concerned about problems amoung old friends when there was a new little one to celebrate the arrival of, even if Remus couldn't help wishing his friend could have been there to see his new grandchild.

Peeking in on the new mother and baby, Remus smiled as softly as he spoke, not wanting to disturb her if she was resting. "How is the new mother today?"

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potter_girl
2010-11-13 09:48 pm UTC (link)

For someplace that was supposed to be calming and restful, the hospital was chaotic sometimes. Healers and Mediwitches and potions and carts and things and people in and out. It had calmed down for breakfast, both Lily's and Hope's, with a little help from a rosy-cheeked Healer.

Hope had taken to nursing with enthusiasm, and it hadn't taken long to fill her tiny tummy. Lily couldn't bear to put her down just yet, and sat propped among pillows with Hope in her arms, watching her sleep. Every so often she'd stir, or stretch. Once a yawn had stretched her tiny mouth wide, and showed off her wee milky tongue.

It was easy to lose yourself in simply staring at your baby...

A voice came from the doorway, and Lily grinned at the visitor. "Remus! Oh, I'm fine. Come in..." She beckoned with one hand. "Come see. She's the loveliest thing..."

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-13 11:25 pm UTC (link)

Smile turning into a grin, Remus came further into the room. He stopped when he was at the side of the bed and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Then he sat carefully on the edge of the bed to get his first look at the precious bundle in her arms.

"She's beautiful, Lily." He reached out to brush a gentle finger oh so lightly over one curled up fist. Maybe it was because he'd spent so many years believing he couldn't have them. Or, it might have been the influence of his father, who had so loved kids he'd wanted to specialise in their care as a Healer. Whatever the case, Remus couldn't help melting in the presence of small children.

He could even still be found playing with Kreacher's children at home when the old elf would allow it.

"What did you settle on for a name?"

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potter_girl
2010-11-13 11:35 pm UTC (link)

"Isn't she? I can't stop looking at her." Remus touched her so gently, and still she stirred, mewling like a kitten in Lily's arms. "I can't believe she's real..."

She stroked the soft wisps of dark hair, then looked up and smiled.

"Hope. Her name is Hope." She looked back at the tiny being she held. "My Hope..."

She let herself watch her daughter sleep for another moment, then looked back at Remus. "Would you like to hold her?"

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-14 02:36 am UTC (link)

"She's real." Watching her with her baby, Remus couldn't help hoping the Healers were as good as they claimed and could help her heal completely. There were a lot of people out there who cared about this little baby and her mother. Perhaps that was why the name she'd chosen seemed so appropriate.

"Hope," he repeated quietly, leaning over to look more closely at that tiny face. "Welcome to the world, Hope."

Startled and touched by the offer, Remus looked up at Lily with a smile. It had been years since he'd held a child this small, maybe not even that. There was every possibility he hadn't been able to see Harry until he was two or three weeks old because of a mission. "I wouldn't want to disturb her. She looks very content as she is. She might not like being moved."

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potter_girl
2010-11-14 04:13 am UTC (link)

"I don't think you could disturb her. She's like a kitten; her tummy's full and she's sound asleep." She shifted and lifted the baby free of her own blankets, tucking the little pink one around her daughter.

"You know you want to," she added with a smile. "Besides, my arm could use a rest."

The tiniest fib, but if he really wanted to hold her and didn't want to say so, it was the perfect nudge in the right direction.

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-14 05:34 am UTC (link)

"If you're sure it's all right," Remus said cautiously, smiling a bit shyly at the show of trust. He was, at his core, a soft-hearted sop. Always had been. Especially when it came to children.

Reaching out to gingerly take the sleeping child from her, he made sure to use both hands, one to support the head until he could settle her in the crook of his arm, just as another Lily had taught him years ago. Such a little thing, warm and pleasantly heavy on his arm. With his other hand he very softly stroked her tiny fist using one finger, just looking at her in silence for a moment. It seemed odd that his own hands had held life and death between them so literally -- killing men with his hands in battle not quite a month ago and now holding this precious new life between them.

He needed to make time to talk to Stephen soon. Holding Hope like this made him want his own with Regulus even more.

"If she'll sleep awhile yet," he said softly, still smiling at the bundle in his arms, though he was speaking to Lily, "we can catch up a bit."

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potter_girl
2010-11-14 05:45 am UTC (link)

"I think she will. Not that I've known her for long, but she seems to eat and crash." Lily leaned to touch Hope's fist with her own fingertip, smiling at the way her gentle friend held her daughter.

"You've recovered from your injuries well?" She lay back against the pillows, shifting a bit. "I didn't see a limp, or a list when you came in. You're breathing okay," she added, ticking off the laundry list of things he could be displaying.

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-14 11:45 pm UTC (link)

Chuckling, Remus shook his head. "No limp, or list, or breathlessness, tiredness, or anything else that might still be bothering me. Bellatrix' darts missed both vital organs and major arteries. Regulus was there to keep me alive until Stephen could get to me and the silver poisoning was cleared completely. I'm well and healed, promise."

Of course, there were going to be a dozen new little scars along his right side. But, scars only bothered him when people saw them.

"How is your own work with the Healers progressing?" Hope fussed a bit and he settled her more comfortably on his arm, murmuring softly until she settled again. "Are your memories getting more stable?"

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potter_girl
2010-11-15 04:07 am UTC (link)

"I'm so glad. I only heard bits of news about anyone while we were still at Hogwarts. I saw you sleeping the day I saw Al, and you looked horrible. Nobody I passed that day looked very well, actually."

She smiled as he soothed Hope when she fussed. "You've done this before," she observed, then sighed at the question.

"I like to think so. The Healers say so, anyway. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that my sessions usually leave me feeling terrible. I guess that's progress too..." She smiled faintly at the bundle Remus held. "I wish that things had gone very differently, you know. That I'd not been at that party. That I'd been able to resist what they wanted me to do. I wish that all I had to worry about was how many nappies she'd use in a day and whether or not I'd get any sleep..."

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-15 04:02 pm UTC (link)

"I imagine I did." Remus snorted softly at her description of his injured stated. "I was doing a lot of that, sleeping, even after I'd left and gone home." He hadn't seen a lot of people before he'd left because he was sleeping and once he was home, it was even easier to relax and sleep more. It was probably a good thing Regulus had had work to keep him occupied because Remus certainly hadn't been much company for days, only getting up to attend a few of the necessary funerals, really.

"Not more than once or twice," he admitted with a shake of his head, pausing before continuing. "With your father. When I managed to see my friends between missions during the first war."

Sighing, he smiled gently at her. "You'll get there, Lily. Guilt and remorse are good in small measure, even the regret, in a way, so long as you don't let any of them consume you. It proves you care, that you're not as unaffected as you would be if you'd been doing those things with full awareness." He tactfully refrained from reminding her that if she hadn't gone along with them, she might not have Hope. "No one gets out of this life without some regrets. You just have to accept that you can't change what you did, you can only learn from your mistakes, try to make amends for the hurt caused to others, and go on with living as best you can with the consequences of your actions."

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potter_girl
2010-11-15 04:16 pm UTC (link)

"It's so hard," she said softly. "I know that I've done terrible things." She looked at her daughter, sleeping in Remus's arms. "And good things. As much as I'd like to change a thousand other things, I wouldn't change her.

"And I know everyone says it's bad, or I'm mad, but I loved him, you know? Even in everything that shouldn't ever have been, I loved him, somehow. It hurts that he's gone. That he won't ever see her."

She fell silent for a moment, then looked down at her ring. "There has to be a way to put all of me together. Everything about me, good or bad, is still me. Something between the girl I used to be, the woman I was, and the whole person I want to become..."

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-15 05:37 pm UTC (link)

"If it was easy, it wouldn't mean anything," Remus said quietly. Looking down at the baby sleeping in his arms, he nodded. "She's an innocent. No matter what you or her father have done, it's not her fault, though she will bear some of society's opinion merely for bearing his name." Remus still might argue the be all and end all of house affiliations, but even he knew the importance of names in their world. Hope Lestrange would always have a stigma against her because of her name and it's relation to her parents' actions.

"I know you loved him. Emotions aren't something that are easy to plan. And, sometimes, we love the people who hurt us for the very reason they are the only constant point in our lives." He'd seen it in the packs, those run by Greyback, the werewolves who convinced themselves they loved the Alpha who abused his power over them. It was part of why Remus had never wanted to be involved with the packs at all. "The question is really whether you can understand that, despite your feelings for him, what he was detrimental to your own well-being, that love doesn't always make something right. You can love the man you thought he was. You can forgive the things he did to you. But, can you accept that he wasn't good for you, despite all of it?"

Sighing softly, he shook his head. He didn't think it was that simple. As much as he wanted to see her well and healed for Harry's sake, for her family's sake, for her own sake, Remus didn't think it was going to be as easy as putting two puzzle pieces together. "That's what the Healers are trying to help you do, put the real you together, separate out the false memories from the true, the manufactured emotions from the sincere. The whole person, though, that will depend more, I think, on what you do with yourself once you see the full truth and how much was a fiction, the future choices you make when it comes time to deal with the whole picture of yourself that healing process creates."

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potter_girl
2010-11-16 01:15 am UTC (link)

Lily pulled her feet up, wrapping arms around her knees and watched Remus with her daughter. "I know the name means things to people, but it feels like I'm hiding from that part of what happened to me if I deny it.

"And yes, I know. He wasn't good for me. He was manipulative and cruel. But he's the reason I have Hope.

"I want to find the real me," she said quietly. "I don't want to be someone made of pieces. I know it's going to take a long time, though. I just hope..." She shrugged one shoulder, gazing off toward the window. "I hope people don't give up on me."

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-16 04:33 pm UTC (link)

Remus knew that sitting position all too well. It was one he still adopted himself when it was all getting too much to bear and his subconscious needed to protect him from a conversation that hurt like bloody hell. Not often. He couldn't remember the last time it had happened. But, he knew the sort of emotions that gesture hid. Shifting Hope gently in his arms, he offered her back to her mother, more comfort than he could likely give himself just then.

"Is it?" he asked quietly. "Is it hiding? Or is it letting go of something that's already had power over you for too long? Something that in the letting go gives your daughter a slightly better lot? You have Hope because some Divine Providence gave you a miracle. Perhaps Fate's way of making up for the innocence that was taken from you. You can acknowledge Rabastan's role in her conception, but you don't owe him anything for it. If anything, after what he did to you, he owed you this child."

Sighing, he reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind one ear, squeezing her shoulder gently before lowering his hand. "Lily, there are so many people who love you and who are not going to give up on you. You have brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins who all love you. You have friends who will not forget you or let you forget they're thinking of you. There's an entire web of people ready to support you if you let them. You'll get there and you'll have plenty of help along the way."

He smiled. "Just don't give up on us, either, or forget we're here to help in any way we can."

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potter_girl
2010-11-16 04:41 pm UTC (link)

"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know if I'm hiding or embracing it or clinging stupidly to it. I just... I don't know." She unwrapped her arms to embrace the baby he laid in them, looking down at her and wondering what on earth she'd ever done to deserve this.

"I just want her to be safe..." She turned her cheek to his touch, and his hand brushed her skin as he withdrew it.

"Thank you..." She blinked away the warmth of tears that threatened to spill. "You've always been so good to me. I hope someday we'll get to weed the garden again, or have chocolate cake..."

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galarusblaidd
2010-11-16 05:05 pm UTC (link)

"Well," he said slowly, giving a thoughtful nod as he acknowledged her confusion, "there is also another way to look at it. Taking your name back, becoming Lily Potter again? In a way, you'd be giving your father his daughter back. Your father loved you very much; he never gave up on you and always believed that, one day, his little girl would come back to him. You could give him that now. I won't tell you that's what you should do. It has to be your own choice. But, it's something to think about."

Standing, he moved to hug her briefly about the shoulders. "I know you do, which is why I don't hope for some day. I know that one day, you and Hope and I will sit in the garden and eat chocolate cake. I know this because you are your father's daughter and, like him, you will do whatever you have to do in order to be with her. So, I know you're going to be well one day because you'll do it for her; whatever you have to do in order to Heal and be free, you'll do it for Hope."

Smiling, he stepped away. "But, now, I think I've stayed long enough and you, young lady, need to get some rest. But, I'll try to see you again before they take you back. And if I can't, I'll write. Promise."

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